Fiscal cliff threatens funding for community health centers

The so-called fiscal cliff threatens funding for community health centers, such as Sunrise Community Health in Greeley.

The Affordable Care Act established a health center trust fund that supported community health centers after the recession. On Saturday, funding for that trust fund ends unless Congress restores it. That would mean Sunrise would lose $3.4 million, or 14 percent of the center's budget.

In 2015, Congress voted to extend the funding of $3.6 billion annually for two additional years.

If the trust fund ends, it could result in an estimated 9 million patients losing access to care, 50,000 jobs lost and 2,800 health center sites closing their doors nationwide, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.

“Medicaid is 62 percent of our budget. If they cut the (Medicaid) expansion and eliminate the trust fund, that’s $6.8 million from Sunrise’s budget.

— Mitzi Moran, CEO of Sunrise Community Health

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The funding is a benefit of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans hope to repeal and replace.

Mitzi Moran, CEO of Sunrise Community Health, said losing the trust fund money would cut about $3.4 million out of Sunrise's budget. If Republicans also succeed in rolling back the Medicaid expansion brought about by the ACA, she said, Sunrise could lose double that.

"Medicaid is 62 percent of our budget," Moran said. "If they cut the (Medicaid) expansion and eliminate the trust fund, that's $6.8 million from Sunrise's budget."

Sunrise's total budget is $34 million.

Following the Medicaid expansion and the money from the trust fund, Sunrise opened the Adelante Clinic, 1010 A St., and added 130 jobs. Sunrise now employs more than 400 people across all its campuses.

With those kinds of cuts, it's possible Sunrise would have to close one of the clinics or scale back services and employees in its community health system. Those clinics together serve 38,000 patients in Weld County.

Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.; Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sent a letter to Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on health, education, labor and pensions, respectively, to urge a swift resolution to the funding cliff community health centers face.

Moran said she has been in contact with Gardner and is trying to get him the information necessary to make the best decision.

"Not to say I don't think Obamacare doesn't need to be fixed — but this is not a fix," Moran said. "This makes it worse for everybody."